What's Up?

[dkissler]

I have a golden comet who is about 22 weeks old. She has starting to lay inconsistently, for about two weeks, but has produced great "normal" eggs, hard shell, beautiful golden yolks. In the last few days I have been finding soft shell or broken eggs all over the yard. Today, I watched her lay an egg at one of the water buckets, no where near her roost, and this egg was beautiful but was missing the hard shell. Two questions: 1) when should a layer have consistently hard shells? 2) why is this layer not laying in her roost but randomly all over the yard?


This picture is her egg laid at the watering station.

 

[Peeps61]

Since she is new to laying, her system is working out all the kinks. You'll get this for a little while, until she gets it all worked out. If you want her to use the nesting boxes, put some fake eggs or golf balls in them, and keep her locked in the coop until she lays. Most hens will lay before lunchtime. Then, let her out to roam. Hens like to lay where other hens are laying, so the fake eggs or gold balls will encourage her to lay in the boxes. Mine needed a bit of training at first, but now (a year later), they will come back to the coop from afar and to the nesting boxes and lay in the the space where they got started. It works like a charm!

 

[iwiw60]

Agree with Peeps61 for sure. Another thing to take into consideration is this blasted HEAT most of us are experiencing right now...really stresses out the ladies.